Performance Review Template: The Copyable SBED Version Built From Your Weekly 1:1s

By Andreas Pettersson, Founder, Leaders ADAPT

A performance review that surprises the employee is a failed year of 1:1s with a form on top.

That is the rule behind the performance review template on this page. The review is the sum of the weekly 1:1s. If you ran them, the review writes itself from your notes. If you did not, no template will make the conversation honest, and the employee will feel the gap before you finish the first paragraph.

I run Leaders ADAPT and wrote the 5-Minute Leader for managers who are the bottleneck of their own team. The 1:1 Protocol and the Accountability Protocol in it are what this template is built from. Copy the template, fill it from your notes, and use the filled example below as the standard.

The performance review template (copy it)

A performance review template is a fixed set of sections a manager fills with evidence from the review period so that the written review contains nothing the employee is hearing for the first time. Here is the one I use. Plain text, so it pastes into any system.

``` PERFORMANCE REVIEW

Name: Role: Period: Manager: Date of review conversation:

1. OUTCOMES OWNED THIS PERIOD Outcome 1: Result (met / partly / missed): Outcome 2: Result: Outcome 3: Result:

2. EVIDENCE (one SBED block per outcome or theme) Situation: where and when Behavior: what they observably did Experience: the effect on the team, the customer or the number Demands: what continues or changes going forward

3. STRENGTHS (two or three, one example each) Strength: Example:

4. WHAT CHANGES NEXT PERIOD (one or two, each with a date) Change: Visible by: Change: Visible by:

5. WHAT I COMMIT TO AS YOUR MANAGER Support: By when:

6. RATING (only if the company process requires one, placed after the evidence)

7. EMPLOYEE RESPONSE (their words, written after the conversation)

Signed: Date: ```

Six of the seven sections are evidence. One is a number.

That ratio is the point.

Why the review is the sum of the weekly 1:1s

Gallup's research on performance reviews found that only 14 percent of employees strongly agree their reviews inspire them to improve, and that traditional reviews make performance worse about a third of the time. The same research found that weekly feedback, compared with annual, makes people 5.2 times more likely to strongly agree they receive meaningful feedback.

Read those two findings together and the template design follows. The annual document is not where improvement happens. The weekly 1:1 is. The document is where you prove the 1:1s happened.

In the 1:1 Protocol I teach, each weekly meeting ends with three things: the person's top three priorities, what they need from you, and what they are committing to before the next 1:1. Keep those three lines every week and section 1 of the template is already written by December. Keep the SBED feedback you gave along the way and section 2 is written too.

Think of the review as a bank statement. The transactions happened all year. The statement just lists them. A statement that shows a transaction the account holder never saw is a problem with the bank, not the customer.

How to fill each section, with a worked example

Here is the template filled for a fictional operations lead, so you can see the standard before you write your own.

The evidence row is where most reviews fail. "Proactive" is not evidence. "Ran the vendor test before signing" is. If you cannot write the scene, you do not have the evidence, and the line comes out.

The two sections managers skip, and why they matter most

Section 5, the manager's commitment, is the one that gets deleted first. It should not be. A review that only lists what the employee must change is a list of demands with no trade. The Accountability Protocol I teach calls the shape Warm but Firm: open with positive intent, be direct in the middle, close with "What do you need from me to make this shift?" Section 5 is that closing question written down with a date.

Section 7, the employee response, is the other one. It turns the document from a verdict into a record of a conversation. If they disagree, their words go in. If they agree, their words go in. Either way, the next review starts from something both of you signed.

Mistakes the template is built to prevent

Surprises. If a gap in section 4 was never raised in a 1:1, you are not allowed to write it. Raise it this week, then it can appear next review. The 24/48 Rule I teach for feedback applies to reviews too: after 48 hours, feedback is archaeology, and a year old surprise is a dig.

Adjectives without scenes. Proactive, reliable, difficult, needs to be more strategic. Every one of these has to be replaced by a situation and a behavior or deleted.

The rating first. If the number comes before the evidence, the conversation is about the number. Put it after, and the conversation is about what happened.

The review as the whole feedback system. A written review once or twice a year is the floor. The weekly 1:1 is the system, and the one on one meeting template is where it lives. If the 1:1s are not happening, fix that before the next review cycle, not after.

Grading the person instead of the work. The review covers outcomes and behaviors in a period. It is not a character assessment, and the moment it reads like one, the employee stops listening and starts defending. If the behaviors point at something a review cannot fix, that is a different document, and the performance improvement plan template covers it.

Performance review template FAQ

What should a performance review template include?

A usable template has six parts: the period and role, the outcomes the person owned, evidence for each outcome in SBED form (situation, behavior, experience, demands), strengths with one example each, the one or two changes required next period with a date, and the support the manager commits to. Ratings are optional and should never replace the evidence.

How do you write a performance review for an employee?

Collect the notes from the period's weekly 1:1s first, then write each section from those notes rather than from memory. Lead with the outcomes they owned, give one specific example per strength and per gap, state the change required going forward with a date, and read it aloud before the meeting to remove anything you would not say to their face.

What is the SBED format in a performance review?

SBED stands for Situation, Behavior, Experience, Demands. Each piece of evidence names where it happened, what the person observably did, what effect it had, and what has to change or continue going forward. In a review it replaces adjectives such as proactive or unreliable with facts the employee can recognize and act on.

How long should a performance review be?

One to two pages. A review that runs longer is usually padding one or two real points with filler. Gallup reports that only 14 percent of employees strongly agree their performance reviews inspire them to improve, and length is not the fix. Specific evidence and a clear demand going forward are.

Should a performance review template include ratings?

Only if the company's pay or promotion process needs a number. If it does, put the rating after the evidence, never before, and make the evidence support it. A rating with no examples is the part of the review that gets argued about, and the evidence is the part that gets acted on.

How often should performance reviews happen?

Formal written reviews are usually annual or twice a year, but the feedback inside them should be weekly. Gallup found that compared with annual feedback, weekly feedback makes team members 5.2 times more likely to strongly agree they receive meaningful feedback. A review should contain nothing the person is hearing for the first time.

Fill it this week, not in December

Copy the performance review template now. Open your 1:1 notes for the last month and write section 1 for one person. If the notes hold enough to fill it, the system works and the review will too. If they do not, you have found the real problem, and it is not the form.

Which person on your team would be most surprised by what you would write in section 4 today?

Start the 1:1s that make the review honest.